Thread: A Necessary Truth

[ Deleted. ]

To me this is not poetry
Its merely ragged free form prose
That starts and plods on stolidly
Till it comes to an end, then goes.
Sorry for my so grumpy nag,
It must be time to have a fag.

Brian

I'm guilty of 'ragged' prose, as you put it, in many instances. I didn't not use a set syllable meter for this poem, but I do not feel it is broken prose. The fourt stanza's a good example of that.

Still, if you thought it did, I'll have to look into making it a bit more obvious as poetry.

The only change I would make (and I am no expert in poetry) would be to take the word Smoking out in the first stanza. Do not come right out and tell us the narrators problem. Let us figure it out for ourselves.

I'm sorry to hear about your father's plight, Nick, truly I am. My Mom passed from complications arising from Emphysema, which had gotten so bad, she couldn't even walk across the room for lack of breath. She did quit years ago, but the damage was done. She still yearned for the cigarettes, though, right up until the end. I urge you to show him the piece, knowing the situation inspired you to write such a piece may inspire him to quit.

As to the piece, I did not find it overly prosaic, grain of salt here, though, I'm known to be prosaic myself. My only nit was the use of caps every line, extremely distracting. I agree with Verum, I think you should remove the entire last line of the first stanza, the piece speaks for itself and it's unnecessary and too telly. The only other thing that niggled me, and most likely only me, was the use of Inhale to end S3, I kept wanting to read inhalation. Otherwise, this worked very well for me. I will be praying for your Dad and the rest of the family as well.

Best,
Lisa